That’s the meme today. St. John’s is playing well and has won two straight — admittedly at home in both games — over Syracuse and ND. The Syracuse game was more of a shock then the ND outcome. Sure the Irish were ranked, but they had yet to win on the road. Syracuse was looking much better. In both games, St. John’s got off to tremendous starts, building up big leads and then just doing enough to hang on.
I’ve gone on record as saying this is not totally surprising since St. John’s has done this sort of hot run in the Big East the last year or two — before the lack of depth and everything else catches up to them.
Another view is that the Big East is a lot closer in terms of talent this year.
“Last year, there were teams at the top that other teams thought they couldn’t beat,” Roberts said. “Right now, anyone can beat anyone on any given night. The big thing is there is a lot more parity.
“In this league, it’s all about the matchups. You could be playing a team with a [worse] record, but, if you don’t match up with them and you don’t play well, you can get beat.”
The match-up with Pitt has been close the last few years — to great consternation.
Finally, there is the view that the Red Storm are playing better, because their coach finally reached them.
The recent rally started after Roberts sent his team home from practice last Friday and told them to return to the gym at 10 p.m. with an improved mind-set. St. John’s was coming off a 71-63 loss at DePaul, its fourth loss in a row.
“I was disappointed with our effort, so we talked to them about respecting the jersey and the school and playing with pride,” said Roberts, a third-year coach who replaced Mike Jarvis. “I can deal with a loss. If we get beat, then we get beat. But if we get beat, we have to be playing as hard as we possibly can. I think what has changed is their mind-set. They have responded. They have responded to some diversity and toughness, and that’s good.”
Uh-huh. Those are always great stories until they fade in the next losing streak.
Naturally, any trip to Pittsburgh for St. John’s means someone needs to raise the stripper incident.
On Feb. 4, 2004, after a 20-point loss at Pittsburgh, six players went to a Steel City-area strip club and took a 38-year-old woman back to the team hotel for sex in exchange for cash.
That was after coach Mike Jarvis had resigned earlier in the year, after most of the top local prep programs had scratched the Red Storm off their lists after Big East programs such as Pittsburgh, Connecticut and Louisville had risen to prominence with top New York recruits.
The Sexcapades fiasco led to revelations of NCAA violations, self-imposed sanctions and, finally, NCAA penalties. St. John’s had become a college basketball punchline.
That’s rather meaningless, at this point. The bigger deal will be how Aaron Gray and Lamont Hamilton do against each other.
